Betraying Innocence (3 page)

Glinting stars stared back at her. She couldn’t ever recall having seen so many claiming the heavens
before. They were nonexistent in the city. Below, a pond shimmered beneath the glow of the moon. The wind whistled through the tall grass. Crickets chirped. It was such a drastic change from the commotion of the city. Even at that hour, people were rushing to get places. Not in Chipawaha Creek. Everyone was sleeping there, except her … and the pale boy standing over her pond.

Ana squished her knuckles into
her eyelids and rubbed. She blinked her eyes and stared hard at the slim, unmoving figure peering down at the ripples in the water. Around him, a white glow seemed to halo him, like he had swallowed a lamp and the light was spilling out of his pores, illuminating the space around him. He stood with his back to her, hands in his pockets, blond head bent. She couldn’t make out much, except he wore a long, black cape draped over his hunched shoulders. The wind lifted the corners, making it flap like wings around his legs.

Ana wondered if she should get her
parents. They would certainly know what to do. But the boy didn’t look like a threat. He looked about her age. Plus, he just seemed really sad.
Maybe he’s lost,
she thought, pressing her nose against the glass. It made sense. Why else would he be standing in her yard in the middle of the night? Or maybe he was hurt and just needed to call someone to come get him. But he didn’t seem hurt.

More
and more, she contemplated waking her parents. They could go out there and deal with the kid. But each time she was reminded that her parents had to be up early in the morning to leave for work so if it turned out to be nothing, just some kid trespassing, they would be furious. Maybe she should just leave him alone. Eventually he would need to go home … unless he was lost.

“Ugh!” Ana stuffed the heels of her hands into her eyelids where a steady throbbing had begun.
This is not solving anything,
she told herself. She would just go out there and ask if he was all right. She would stay on the porch, far enough away so that she was safe.

Pushing
around boxes, she made a path to the back door. She flicked on the porch lights, unsnapped the locks and yanked open the door. Muggy, August air caressed her face, taunting her with the scent of night, wildflowers and dead, rotted things. She drew her robe more tightly around her as she stepped onto the porch and opened her mouth to call out. But no one was there. The spot by the pond where she’d seen the boy was empty.

“Hello?” she called, daring a step down the porch stairs. “Is anyone
there?”

Bullfrogs croaked from somewhere near the pond. Crickets chirped excitedly. Somewhere, wind chimes tinkled. Still
there was no sign of the trespasser. She edged another step, then another until she was at the bottom, on a curving stone path that sliced through the jungle. Most of it was buried beneath grass, but she could make out some of it leading to the pond.

Cautious but curious
, she started along the trail, ears strained for even the slightest unusual sound. Her gaze searched the night. In her chest, her heart rampaged with fear. A nagging voice in her head warned her to turn back, and she started to when something stopped her. It was a sound, a giggle of all things. Ana wondered if maybe there was more than one person out there hiding, or if maybe this had been some kind of joke on the new girl. The idea turned her blood icy. She turned to run back to the house when a movement caught the corner of her eye. Another giggle had her frowning. The bushes just a few feet away rustled. Ana speared her hips with her hands and stiffened her spine. This was her home. No one had the right to make her feel scared.

Armed with sheer grit and stupidity, she marched towards it.

“Hey! You, behind those bushes!” she called, silently patting herself on the back for keeping her voice firm. “Get out before I start shooting!” It was probably a bad idea to announce she had a weapon when she didn’t. Plus, it could have been a possum she was yelling at, or some other animal that lived only in small places like Chipawaha Creek. “You have five seconds! One. Two. Three…!”

The bushes rustled loudly, splitting the night with the crack of branches breaking and very rude, very human cuss words
. Then, like some stripper in a birthday cake, a boy lunged out, naked from the waist up. Something long and silver was clutched in his hand. It caught the light from the porch and sparked like fire.

Panic slammed like a fist in Ana’s chest as she scrambled back. The scream left her throat about the same time as something caught her ankles and sent her colliding with the hard ground. Pain sliced through her hip and up her entire left side. The air careened out of her lungs, paralyzing her from crying out again. Then, the
maniac was on her and the touch of cold steel kissed her skin.

“
Quiet!” a gruff, male voice hissed into her ear.

Ana

Ana tried to scream through the large hand squishing her nose and mouth. Her efforts only managed to earn her a series of incoherent squeaks that dampened the flesh holding her down. Long fingers curled around her cheek, oddly gentle considering his other hand was gripping the back of her skull.

“I’m going to let you go, okay? But you have to promise you won’t scream. Promise?”

Breathing hard, lungs aching for air, Ana squeaked as she thrashed against the hold, clawing at the knuckles holding her face, cutting off her oxygen. Her eyes rolled wildly inside her skull, searching the darkness for her capture’s face. His cheek brushed hers in her flailing. The minty scent of his breath and the fragrance of pine, sweat and spices wafted over her. Something feather-soft touched her face. It was his hair. Oh, God … he was too close!

“Hey
,” he said, his voice unnaturally soothing for someone who was about to kill her. “Relax! I’m not going to hurt you!”

Says the guy holding my face!
she wanted to say, but resorted to even more frantic squawking.

“You’re probably suffocating her, Rafe,” a soft, female voice crooned from behind him.

Rafe
stiffened. “Oh!” His hands instantly dropped away. “Sorry. You okay?”

Ana gasped, choking and gulping on air like a fish too long without water. She wheezed as she rolled onto her hands and knees before
scrambling up to her unsteady feet.

“Are
… you …
crazy
?” she shrieked, panting. “What is wrong with you?” Her hands flew out and slammed into a solid wall of bare, taut muscles. It felt good, even though it had no real effect on him. “What are you doing on my property?”

Truth be told, she didn’t really need to ask. One look at the two staring back at her and she knew
exactly
what she’d interrupted.

The girl was non
e-too hastily doing up the buttons on her top while never minding the fact that her jean skirt was bunched around her waist, exposing Ana to a pair of lacy red panties. Her heavily lidded eyes stared back with a sort of challenge, daring Ana to say something about it, but Ana was no longer looking at her.

The guy
— Rafe — he was another story. He was making no effort at all to cover the miles of golden flesh bare to the night. The button and fly of his jeans were undone, parted dangerously into shadows — no boxer band, Ana noted with a mild sort of hysterical amusement. She had this weird image of him doing up the zipper and catching himself in the process. Mean, but satisfying considering he nearly suffocated her. She was also wondering if that was all it took for a quick roll in the tall grasses. It certainly explained why the girl was wearing a skirt. Easy access. Yet it annoyed her. Why weren’t they doing the horizontal tango in a bed? Weren’t they afraid of inviting ants to the picnic? She shuddered at the thought of all the creepy crawlies making their way into the girl’s dark cave.

A hand appeared in front of her face.
Long fingers snapped inches from her nose. Ana started at the unwarranted intrusion.

“What?”
she snapped, following the hand up the arm to the amused eyes watching her.

“
Would you like me to drop them?”

It took her a moment to decipher his meaning
, which was emphasized by the thumbs he hooked into the waistband of his jeans. The realization smacked her so hard she didn’t know what to say for a moment as the stiff material was slowly drawn downward.

“
No! Stop!” she cried a little too quickly. “What … Why … I wasn’t … I didn’t see…”

Shut up
, Ana!
her brain pleaded, already packing up to dessert her in her moment of utter humiliation.

The hottest sounding chuckle she’d ever heard in her life spilled from the full, firm curves of his mouth. Fingers that belonged on
an artist lifted and forked through waves of absolute ebony. Thick strands tumbled over eyes the gold of melted honey. They watched her with an intensity that made her stomach muscles flutter. He lowered his hand and rubbed the shadows darkening his jaw. Ana could hear the faint scratchy sound the bristles made under his palm. He placed his thumb on his bottom lip and grinned around it at her.

God if it didn’t do strange
and unacceptable things to her.

“
Easy, tigress,” he drawled in a tone dripping with dark, manly sexiness. “All that blushing can’t be good for circulation, or my self-control.”

“Get off my property!” she blurted,
furious with herself for having nothing wittier to throw back at him. “You shouldn’t be here, doing …
that
with
her
!” The second it was out, she wanted to suck it back in and then claw herself a hole to China.

Her companion’s leer stretched into an incredibly
smug expression. His teeth weren’t even, she noted stupidly. It was a strange sort of relief that something about him was flawed, because his face wasn’t and his body
really
wasn’t. His incisors were pushed out a little further than the others, overlapping the teeth between his incisors and his front teeth. It should have been weird, but it only managed to somehow up his sex factor. God was there nothing wrong with this guy?

“Are you suggesting I should be doing
that
with
you
?”

“I did not say that!”
She gasped, horrified. Her gaze darted to the bored girl over his shoulder, hoping she wasn’t the type prone to fits of jealous rage at the thought of another girl homing in on her territory. Ana was pretty sure she would lose. She turned her attention back to the boy. “Okay, listen, you need to just get dressed and then go. Preferably in that order.”

Rather than agree or make a move to do as she asked, his head cocked to the side and he squinted at her.
“Are you usually this skittish or is it just me?”

Heat prickled up the length of her neck and flooded her face. “
I am not skittish! And if it seems like I am it’s because I have naked weirdoes lurking behind my bushes doing … doing what you were doing where you shouldn’t be doing it!” Her gaze lingered over his exposed torso, the depths of his shadowy eyes, the way his dark hair tumbled, long and bedraggled over his brow. Nope, the guy was definitely not hard to look at.

He
took a step back from her, hands up in front of him. Although there was no grin on his face, the gesture was complacent and mocking. A silver studded belt glinted in his grasp and she wondered if that was the silver thing she’d mistaken for a knife earlier, because this guy didn’t need a weapon to get what he wanted. He was dangerous enough without one.

“
There’s no need to get hysterical, sweetheart.”

No… need… to… get … hysterical?

Ana followed his retreating step before she could stop herself, stopping short of trampling on his feet. She knocked her head back to glower up into his shadowed face and stabbed him in the chest with her index finger. The jab may have hurt her more than it hurt him, but it felt good
and satisfying.

“You’re creeping around my backyard
, scaring the hell out of me, manhandling me and you’re telling
me
not to get hysterical?”

“Ow! Ease up!” Jerk actually chuckled! “
I bruise easily.” He laughed harder when she bared her teeth. “Chill. We’re going.”

Wary at his easy compliance, Ana watched him as he
stalked back to the clump of bushes. He swooped down at the waist and snatched something up off the ground. Ana guessed it was his shirt, because he tossed it carelessly over his shoulder and walked casually to his date. The blonde perked up now that she had his undivided attention once more. She snuggled like a lost puppy into his side when he slung an arm around her shoulders.

“
Oh, and for the record, tigress.” He turned his head back and smirked at her. “You’ll know when I manhandle you. Very few girls ever complain.” Then he was stepping over the fallen fence and moving towards the house on the other side.

“My name isn’t
tigress!” Ana flung at his retreating back in a pathetic attempt at having the last word. But he managed to win even that as his low, husky chuckle filled the air.

By the time Ana trudged back to her room, crawled under the covers and urged herself to sleep, she’d already forgotten all about the mysterious figure by the pond. She couldn’t even remember why she’d been out there in th
e first place. The only thoughts dancing in her dreams were those of her new neighbor.

“We have rats,” Ana said the next morning. “I heard them in the walls
last night.”

Mom and Dad were both
sitting at the cluttered island, talking in low murmurs when Ana stumbled her way into the kitchen. Dad had one hand curled around a coffee mug, the other rested lightly on Mom’s. Both glanced up when she entered the room.

“Rats?” her mother
asked, horrified.

“Are you sure?” Dad said. “These old houses just make noises sometimes.”

“They were scurrying behind the walls.” Ana said, shuffling to the fridge before realizing there was nothing inside. She turned to her parents. “Is there anything to eat?” she asked, her stomach affirming her whine by grumbling loudly.

Dad ruffled a hand through his thick, wavy cap of chocolate brown hair. “Well
… no, but!” He rose out of his stool, stalked to the corner and nudged aside a stack of boxes concealing the counter behind them. He returned to the island with a can of chunky soup. He set it down with a flourish, looking triumphant as if he had gone out at the crack of dawn to hunt for that can in the middle of the Amazon forest. “Ta-da!”

Ana stared at the offering. Then, she stared at her parents. “Seriously?”

Still beaming, but not so brightly, Dad looked at her questioningly. “Why not? It’s healthy.”

“It’s also in a can,” Ana said, picking up the can and shaking it. The contents inside sloshed against the metal sides. “Unless you know where the can opener is, a pot, a spoon and a bowl
… this is kind of pointless.”

Dad dropped back into his stool, mouth drawn down in a sulk. “It’s all here somewhere.”

Ana rolled her eyes, putting the can down. “How is it you guys found all the stuff you need for coffee, but you couldn’t find a can opener?”

Mom sighed, checking the silver watch around her wrist. “I have two hours before my flight leaves. I’ll take you into town and you can grab something really quick.”

“Actually.” Dad dug into the pocket of his jeans and returned with the keys to his truck. “There’s no point in us both taking our cars and paying for overnight parking,” he said to her mother. “You can drive me to the ferry and Ana can pick me up tomorrow morning.” He turned to Ana. “Think you can remember that?”

“Yes!
Oh my God, yes!” Ana squealed, doing a little hop on the spot. Getting the truck, or even her mom’s Mercedes Benz, was a big deal, especially since she was trying so desperately to earn points for a car of her own for her eighteenth birthday. “I will be there at the crack of dawn!”

“And you will take good care of her?”
Her father reached out with the keys in hand.

“Yes! Yes! I swear! She’ll be better than new!” She lunged for the keys.

Her dad yanked them back at the last second. “And you
will
drive responsibly? Obey the rules of the road and fill up the tank when you’re finished?”

Putting one hand up and the other on her heart, Ana nodded vigorously. “I swear on my life!”

Dad chuckled, tossing her the keys. “I’ll hold you to that.”

With another little squeal, she snatched them
out of midair and clutched them to her chest. “Thank you!”

Mom checked her watch again. “All right, all right, we need to leave now
if I’m to drive you to the ferry first.”

The breakfast party promptly ended with kisses and hugs shared all around. There were routine instructions given —lock the doors; check the windows before bed; let no one in; talk to
no one; don’t wreck the truck. Things she already knew, but listened half-mindedly, because the sooner they left, the sooner she could get behind the wheel. Her mom stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into her hand before walking out the front door. Dad waited until her mom was out of eye and ear shot before passing her another forty.